new dresses when the roosters began to sell. She could
hear fat Mrs. Glenn puffing and laughing her way up the little crests
of the road and could guess that her thin husband was doing his best to
help her.

She was so interested in the folks ahead that she forgot to be afraid
and never once glanced back into the shadows. Had she done so she
might have seen David loitering along, keeping faithful watch over her.
So nicely did he time his steps that when she reached the door of the
minister's country house he was right behind her, and all Green Valley
saw them come in together.

When Jocelyn, in slipping from her evening wrap, turned and saw him and
flushed, he covered her confusion by saying reproachfully but gently:

"Those slippers are ever so pretty, Jocelyn, but you ought not to wear
them on these rough country roads and they are hardly warm enough for
these cool evenings, are they?"

She gave him a little smile full of saucy wickedness for she heard the
pain in his voice and saw the lover's hunger in his eyes and knew that
she was loved well and truly. But she had been hurt and she was too
much a woman and far too human not to take her turn at gentle cruelty.

"What a couple," breathed Joshua Stillman, standing beside the blazing
fireplace with Colonel Stratton. "She's like a dewy sweet rosebud and
he's a regular story-book lover in looks and a rare fine boy. We
haven't had a wild rose romance like this one for a long while."

"We'll have a finer when that young parson wakes up. He has the look
of a great lover, and look at the love history of the Churchills."

It was evident that no man there dreamed of criticizing
the dress that looked like pink sea foam. Even David drank in the
picture of his little sweetheart and saw how necessary to this wild
rose sweetness the high-heeled slippers were. He wondered if ever in
his life he would kiss her and, should such glory come to him, if he
would live through the joy of it.

It was the women who were inclined to murmur. But as soon as they
caught a look or a smile meant just for them their primness melted.
Their duty to their conscience and their upbringing done, they smiled
back lovingly at the girl, for who could be critical of a sweet wild
rose!

Jocelyn was not the only one whose gown had no collar. Nan Ainslee
wore a plain dress that was so beautiful it made the women catch their
breath. When Dolly asked the Green Valley dressmaker if she could